


Turn Away From Paradise

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Shadows and Ice On a Dying Planet [3]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Immortals in Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: An adventure on a new planet doesn't go as Methos hopes.





	Turn Away From Paradise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merriman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/gifts).



> I hope this works for you!
> 
> Thanks to Lferion for a sanity check!

Where the mangrove-like trees thin out with deepening water, there are signs that this world is not as pristine as they had thought when they decided to explore. Nothing more than a weathered and battered platform clinging between slim trunks, but it speaks of people once being here, and recently. Methos is tempted to use the flat hover discs that Amanda had used to find him to search the area for others, in case those people are human, rather than whatever native creatures have developed into people.

"If we use them, where's the adventure?" Amanda leans into the prow of the sleek little boat they'd brought down from the ship, watching him with a small smile curling her lips, and the feathered kitten she'd found climbing up from her shoulder to her head.

"Safely elsewhere. One planet full of screeching death was enough adventure for several centuries." Perhaps the only good thing to come out of that was a decided reduction in his distaste for open water. Open water at least means he's not surrounded by an endless expanse of ice and scraped-clean rock.

In the end, they send one disc to find them a route and search for any other signs of habitation, mooring their boat at the platform and using it to camp. By morning, they wind their way through tangled mangrove roots, in a narrow channel that widens as they work their way past the tidal zone.

Undergrowth begins to take up space between trees that change little, turning the bank into a dense wall of green. The sun is sliding down the western sky when they find another platform, a dock projecting out into the river. Day by day they follow the signs of people up the river, docks and clear portage around climbing rapids and waterfalls. Fish are easy meals, and at some sites, there are paths into the rain forest that lead sometimes to fruiting trees, and sometimes to trees which provide nothing. Perhaps another season, or perhaps simply another time.

It is the fourth night when they find the rain forest holds danger as well as plenty. Methos is glad he is not alone here, and also that he has never lost the habit of carrying a knife on him at all times.

Amanda is sitting on the other side of the corpse, just visible in the dim light from the planet's two small moons, her sword in hand. Neither of them sleep the rest of the night, holding vigil on the dock.

In the morning, they get a better look at the cat-like creature. It is easily the size of a tiger, marked with the dappled rosettes of a jaguar. It is feathered, like the little creature who'd snuggled up to Amanda at the seaside, save it is all in mossy green and deep brown. Methos thinks the opposable thumbs on all four paws are the worst of it, though he hopes they aren't the ones who built the structures along the river.

"The coastal cat was adorable." Amanda is checking over her sword, making sure there are no burrs on the blade that might slow it down when slicing through flesh. She looks up a moment, meeting Methos's gaze. "I'll get the rest of the discs in the air."

No more surprises like this.

* * *

Further upstream, where a canyon closes walls along the river bank, and the water runs swift and loud, there is a weathered shelter with a slip and a rack above a high-water mark on the walls. Stairs of the same wood lead up to a walkway and a door. Outside, stairs carved into the canyon wall take them up to a well-kempt campsite with a fire-circle inside a tamped-earth space large enough for several people to set bedrolls.

Beyond it, pale green grass spreads out across a massive plain that stretches unbroken to the horizon. No city, no smudge of smoke from smaller settlements or nearby camps.

Amanda sighs, sitting on a rock that edges the campsite, looking back at Methos as he continues to watch the grassland. "Do you want to go further?"

Methos shrugs, settling onto one of the other rocks, avoiding those nearest the edge of the canyon. Watching Amanda in turn, and seeing the tiredness in her expression. She's appeared glad to stay with him while he tries to remember how to be human in the company of other humans, but he knows she prefers more company than one grumpy old man.

"I don't know." He's not sure at this point if he's hoping to find whoever has built this trail of breadcrumbs, or he's hoping to find that the builders are dead and gone. Which would let him leave with Amanda with the same ease he's left every other planet they've explored in the last century.

They don't have to make any decision tonight, except perhaps if they'll bring the shuttle here rather than returning to the beach they first landed near. There's more than enough space, and with the shuttle, they can have all the modern comforts, despite the wild around them.

Morning brings high streaks of cloud, painting red and orange banners across the sky that herald changing weather. It also brings the light touch of an approaching Immortal, familiar brush of presence against Methos's own. Amanda looks at him silently before retreating to the hatch of the shuttle they'd signaled to come down yesterday. Waiting, and watching, and offering support against a hostile presence if he needs it.

"Brother!" The loud voice, the happy greeting - genuine, from the broad smile on a face burned into his memory even now - are enough to make Methos act on instinct, knife flung without thought and with the accuracy of centuries of muscle memory.

His knees hit the ground as Silas falls, and Methos sits back on his heels, staring. He knows Silas is dead, remembers the grim necessity and the aching pain it left in its wake. Remembers, too, the stinging pain of taking on his brother's Quickening. Fragments and scraps of the memories that had poured into his head still linger, even now, though there are few enough of them left after so long.

Amanda's hand on his shoulder reminds him that he's not here alone with his brother's dead body. That if he had hallucinated this, she'll tell him.

"Which of the other Horsemen is he?"

Not a hallucination, then.

"Silas." He can't take his gaze off his brother, seeing what has changed and what remains of the past. The clothes are leather and fur, unarmored. Hair still shorn short, body still heavy with the strength it takes to cleave logs or skulls with the same easy swing of an ax. The bare patches of skin - face and hands - are darkened with exposure to the tropical sun that rises into the sky at Methos's back, and he thinks Silas seems more at peace than he was at their last, disastrous reunion.

"We can leave now." If he wants to walk away from someone supposed to be long dead. If he wants to leave this impossibility behind at the edge of the galaxy, and forget what he has seen.

It might be better for him to leave now, and pretend he has never seen this, never wondered if Silas is the only one who might be here. To not wonder too hard what this place is. There isn't supposed to be anything after losing one's head, nothing but memories that are passed onto another and fragmented and lost under the weight of time.

Certainly if there is, Methos would not have expected to find it on a planet circling a star at the fringes of the galaxy.

"What if he's not alone?" Methos can barely whisper the question, his voice hoarse as if he's been screaming. Silas would not be the one to build that trail along the river. He wouldn't bother.

"I don't want to know if he's not alone here." Amanda's voice is tense, an echo of old grief giving it weight. She's lost her own friends and more over her long life, and if they're here... Methos doesn't claim to know her well enough to know how she'll react, but he doesn't think he wants to find out.

Red and orange fade into pinks before Methos reaches up to press against Amanda's hand, pushing himself to his feet as she steps away. He brushes dirt from his knees without looking over at Silas, focusing instead on Amanda. "Do you want to stay?"

"No." Amanda is looking over the grass like he did yesterday, gaze far away for a long moment. Searching, maybe, for some sign of who else might be here. She smiles as she turns back, sadness lurking in her eyes. "I'll wait a few days before I drop a sattelite and uplink for you."

Give him time to decide if he wants to stay. To find out who else is here with Silas.

Methos just nods, and waits for Amanda and the shuttle to be out of range before he takes the knife out of Silas's chest, and goes to sit on one of the rocks to wait.

* * *

It takes weeks after he talks to Silas to be able to write a list of seven names, the script he writes in as old as his memory.

It takes years and the insistant pestering of Amanda and MacLeod to admit the names on that list.

He never goes back to that planet quietly spinning through the edges of the galaxy. He can't carve his own heart out a second time.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not think I am capable of writing a story in this particular sequence that doesn't leave dangling threads. On the other hand, this one actually has a sequel in progress. :D


End file.
